Collection: Adult

Tag along with clever guide John O'Connor as he leads us on a gonzo journey through the history of psychedelics, the Amazon rainforest, and into the cosmic dimensions of our own minds. This will be the trip of a lifetime.

March 4th, 1971: Deep in the Colombian rainforest, a motley crew of "psychonauts" prepared for what they believed would be the ultimate experiment. Convinced that a mixture of powerful hallucinogenic plants held the key to unlocking human consciousness, they soon found themselves entering hyperspace.

The return journey was... complicated.

Present day: Acclaimed journalist John O'Connor is fascinated by this forgotten expedition. What really happened in those jungle depths? Armed with decades-old field notes, new interviews, and a healthy dose of curiosity, O'Connor ventures into the same Amazon territory, retracing the psychonauts' steps through the remote Putumayo in search of a legendary hallucinogen called ukuè --and the truth about an "experiment" that's been quietly gathering dust.

Working alongside indigenous Uitoto people who bore witness to it all, O'Connor explores how humanity's relationship with psychedelics has shaped everything from ancient religion to modern medicine. But as he journeys deeper into both the rainforest and the cosmic dimensions these substances reveal, one question keeps nagging at him:

Were the psychonauts onto something truly profound--or just profoundly stoned?

Some stories are worth the trip.

"Alternately whimsical and horrifying, Rebelein's newest is a bizarre gem. I don't want to join any cult he dreams up, but I will be first in line to read about them." --KIERSTEN WHITE, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide

In this shockingly fun wild ride of horrors, Sam Rebelein takes readers back to Renfield County and tells the story of two Rachels--one who mistakenly starts a cult at her local high school and one who tries to dismantle it ten years later.

2009: Rachel Galloway is bored in class. She spends the dreary fall days sketching in her notebook--adorable pigs munching on her boring teachers--and imagining a utopia where all the horrors of Burnskidde High School disappear. But when her classmates start to believe this utopia could be real, Galloway finds herself at the center of an elaborate, and quickly spreading, new religion. Before long, the town is split between believers and nonbelievers. As tensions rise and the rituals become more dangerous, Galloway can't be sure what's real and what's not, or who she can trust.

BURNSKIDDE: CULTWATCH

2019: This is the cryptic message that Renfield County Guard Rachel Durwood receives from her colleague Mark, mere days after he's disappeared. Mark's note leads Durwood to the town of Burnskidde, famously sealed off from the rest of the county ten years ago. Now, she discovers a small, insulated community preparing for the rapture and, seemingly, their collective demise. In order to save Burnskidde from itself, she must piece together the fallout from 2009 and avoid being swept up into the monstrous cult herself.

As Rachel Galloway watches her life spiral out of control, Rachel Durwood navigates a world where history, horror, and faith collide. Despite being separated by a decade, Galloway and Durwood may be closer to each other than they realize. But even together, will they be able to stop Burnskidde's impending doom?

"The novel never forgets to have fun but always keeps its finger on the pulse of the characters' hearts. A wild, bristling ride that would make Lovecraft blush." --MICHAEL WEHUNT, author of The October Film Haunt and Greener Pastures

In Autocracy 2.0, Jennifer Lind reveals how China's leaders defied expectations and propelled the country to innovation-superpower status--and what that means for the balance of power and global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism.

In 2008, the world watched in awe as 2,008 men pounded Fou drums in unison at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony--a spectacle that heralded China's arrival as a global powerhouse. Yet even as China's economy skyrocketed, skeptics scoffed at its ability to lead in tech, arguing that its authoritarian institutions smother true innovation. Lind dismantles this assumption, showing that China has not just kept pace; it has, in fact, surged ahead.

Coupling hard data with razor-sharp analysis, Lind shows that China's ascent was fueled by what she calls "smart authoritarianism" a model of governance in which autocratic leaders temper tight political control with inclusive economic measures. By balancing proinnovation policies with tools of repression, China's leaders have obtained political control and economic growth. These smart authoritarians, Lind observes, are not the brass-knuckled dictators of the past--they are their polished Savile Row-clad progeny, and they are found not only in China but also in authoritarian regimes worldwide.

Compelling and incisive, Autocracy 2.0 is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand China's meteoric rise and how today's autocrats are reshaping the technological frontier, governance, and the global balance of power.

Over the centuries, we have learned to peer into what was once invisible. Imaging devices like cameras, telescopes, microscopes, and MRI machines map the world around, beyond, and within us in ways the naked eye could never see. In so doing, these technologies have transformed our understanding of our place in the universe and our conception of our own bodies--and we may be on the cusp of an even greater revolution.

Daniel K. Sodickson--a physicist and biomedical imaging innovator--explores the rich history and surprising future of vision, from the evolution of eyes to emerging high-tech devices. Beginning in the early oceans, when organisms first developed sight, The Future of Seeing tells the stories of the many remarkable tools people have invented to extend our natural vision. Ranging from the tales of brilliant inventors to profiles of everyday people, this book shows how imaging has transformed the practice of medicine, reshaped the global economy, and complicated the notion of privacy. In the era of artificial intelligence, Sodickson argues, it will be reinvented even further, emulating not only our senses but also our brains. Inviting and eye-opening, The Future of Seeing is a revelatory look at what imaging teaches us about the way we see the world, each other, and ourselves.

Seminal Works brings together Hal Fischer's iconic series Gay Semiotics with his rarely seen early photography and features a dynamic range of essays that consider queer culture and social change in San Francisco.

In the late 1970s, as gay men in San Francisco experienced a new sense of freedom following the Stonewall Uprising, Hal Fischer made Gay Semiotics, a photo-text project that categorized denizens of the Castro and Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods by social type such as the "jock" or the "hippie." Sly and systematic, Fischer portrayed the sartorial codes of queer street style--earrings, handkerchiefs, jeans, or leather--that broadcast a range of desires to potential sexual prospects. The series became an influential record of a libertine era before AIDS, the rise of internet dating apps, and tech industry-accelerated gentrification transformed queer life forever. Tracing the formation of an essential American artist, Hal Fischer: Seminal Works includes Gay Semiotics together with Fischer's rarely seen early photography and features essays that offer vital new perspectives on the history of San Francisco and the resonance of the gay rights movement across generations.

As Dutch merchants became drivers of the transatlantic slavery business in the seventeenth century, Dutch art increasingly used Blackness to signal slavery and servitude. In this brilliant and pathbreaking work, Angela Vanhaelen proposes new ways of looking at Dutch paintings that do not equate Blackness with enslavement.

Vanhaelen reframes the conversation on Netherlandish art by placing seventeenth-century domestic scenes and portraits in dialogue with images of trading forts, markets, and plantations in West Africa and Brazil. She argues that Dutch paintings depicting enslaved Black Africans--for example, Frans Hals's Family Group in a Landscape--not only obscure information about the institution of slavery but fail to capture the resistance and dissent of people who did not conform to the anti-Black world created by Dutch art. Opacity leads readers to grapple with difficult and complex questions: How do we reconcile images of peace and prosperity with the horror of the slave trade? How do we teach imagery of Black people as enslaved without reinforcing anti-Black racism? Can we interpret dehumanizing imagery in ways that consider the complexities of enslavement?

Refusing to view Dutch pictures on their own terms, Opacity recognizes the historical persistence of non-sovereign positions, anticolonial settlements, non-patriarchal homeplaces, open-ended forms of religion and culture, as well as the possibilities of oppositional modes of world-making. This important, thought-provoking book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Black studies and early modern European art history as well as general readers looking for a fresh approach to Dutch art of the period.

The first book to share the untold story of this unique sport, from its origins in the Victorian era to the present day.

Over the past two decades, mountain, ultra and trail running has experienced a massive boom in participation, media attention and corporate consumerism. Once little more than an oddball recreation for mountain athletics romantics, the sport has become a mass activity in ways that were previously unimaginable.

In Dirtbag dreams, Carl Morris offers the first complete account of mountain, ultra and trail running in North America and Britain. Revealing the sport's eccentric Victorian origins, he traces its development through 200 years of history, travelling from the Sierra Nevada and the English Lake District to the streets of London and New York.

Packed with gripping races and colourful characters, Dirtbag dreams is the essential companion for anyone who wants to understand this unique endurance sport.

Using plant-based colour for printmaking is a rich and inspiring practice that opens up a fascinating world of colour independent from a reliance on synthetic inks and pastes. From Plant to Print encourages artists, printmakers and anyone fascinated in natural colour to embark on this compelling journey into making their work more sustainable. Packed with practical advice and some 300 images, the book splits recipes into sections, depending on which substrate will be used, and introduces techniques for printmakers on both paper and fabric. It explains procedures and processes in detail, conveying the intricacies, complications and unexpected joy inherent in adopting this intriguing practice.

Everything you need to know about self-care--especially for Sagittarius!

Take Time for You, Sagittarius!

It's me time--powered by the zodiac! Welcome star-powered strength and cosmic relief into your life with The Little Book of Self-Care for Sagittarius.

While Sagittarius may always be on the go, this book encourages you to slow down and truly put yourself first. Let the stars be your guide as you learn just how important astrology is to your self-care routine. Discover more about your sign and your ruling element, fire, and then find the perfect set of self-care ideas and activities for you.

From watching a funny film to meditating near water, you will find more than one hundred ways to heal your mind, body, and active spirit. It's stellar self-care especially for you, Sagittarius!

After Hamas' shocking 2023 attack on Israel, the United States stood firmly behind Israel's near-genocidal war on Gaza, despite widespread moral outrage and significant damage to Washington's global agenda. But Gaza is only the latest paradox in thirty-five years of Middle East policy. How did this pattern develop, why can't policymakers learn from repeated Middle Eastern calamities, and what does Gaza's destruction mean for America's place in the world?

Marc Lynch charts the United States' disastrously failed approach to the post-Cold War Middle East, where aspirations for US leadership and a calm region have only produced war, instability and humanitarian catastrophe. Lynch exposes the failure of each president's efforts to transform the Middle East in America's image, or pivot away from the region; Washington's refusal to take seriously the views of Middle Easterners; and its fantasy of forging a regional order 'without' the Palestinian issue.

Moving between American politics and Middle Eastern realities, this incisive account explains why US policy has not changed despite its horrifying human costs, from Iraq, Lebanon and Syria to Iran, Yemen and Libya.

An illuminating account of how Americans have been divided by the very value that unites them.

America today is being torn apart by the struggle over a single concept, deeply rooted in the country's sense of self: freedom. Battered by wave after wave of crises, ordinary people of all political persuasions have come to feel that their freedom is under threat - and with it, nothing less than the soul of the nation.

In The trouble with freedom, journalist and researcher Melissa Butcher takes a trip into the ferociously polarised world of American politics, hoping to find out what's going on beneath the surface. Criss-crossing the country, she talks to a wide range of people: Democrat and Republican, gay and straight, urban and rural, immigrants, First Nations, Black, white, the incarcerated.

What she discovers is that political conflict is often the outcome of very personal experiences of managing cultural change. Exploring the different ways freedom has been used to define what it means to be American, Butcher encounters anger and distrust, but also untapped possibilities for empathy and care.

These newly translated stories chart the making of a literary provocateur, one experiment and ethical dilemma at a time.

Before Thomas Bernhard became one of the most provocative voices in modern literature, he was a young writer testing the limits of form and subject. Of Seven Fir Trees and the Snow offers an unprecedented look at his evolution, from his earliest published work at nineteen to the emergence of his unmistakable voice. Translated into English for the first time, in these stories, Bernhard moves from stark naturalism to fairy-tale simplicity to the eerie, stripped-down surrealism reminiscent of science fiction. At the same time, he grapples with the fundamental ethical questions that would define his career: how does one navigate personal autonomy in a world fractured by the upheavals of the twentieth century?

Selected and arranged in chronological order by Douglas Robertson, this collection traces Bernhard's transformation from an ambitious chronicler of Austrian rural life to a writer in dialogue with the broader currents of world literature. A rare glimpse into the making of a literary icon, this volume is essential reading for both longtime admirers and those discovering Bernhard's singular genius for the first time.

The fascinating life and legacy of a pioneering seventeenth-century microbiologist.

The pioneering Dutch microbiologist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek uncovered hidden worlds of minuscule life. With his ingenious, self-made microscopes, he observed inconceivably tiny creatures and structures everywhere--in well water, sperm, pimples, and many other unlikely things besides. In the seventeenth century, his discoveries opened the door to realms previously unseen, making him a renowned researcher. Myriad, Microscopic and Marvellous explores van Leeuwenhoek's brilliant and sometimes peculiar ideas, setting them in the context of his time. Geertje Dekkers reveals how van Leeuwenhoek's curiosity and inventions propelled the study of nature in surprising new directions, leaving a legacy that is still admired three centuries later.

A compelling roadmap to building an autonomous business, best positioned to win, using digital labor powered by Agentic and physical AI

An autonomous business is designed to be AI-first in its strategies and operations to maximize value and minimize time to value, and when it is done right it will unlock unprecedented speed, scale and shared success. But getting from one-off AI implementations - where most companies are at today - to autonomy will be neither easy nor obvious. Business leaders will need to challenge all the conventions, standard operating procedures and orthodoxies underpinning businesses designed by humans for humans - which is to say just about all of them! They will need to build digital labor to non-linearly scale the health, conditioning and talent of their teams, business and ecosystem, enabling 24x7x365 continuity and responsiveness, removing blockages and waste that trap or reduce value. They will need to manage the relationships between the two types of intelligent resources, digital and human. They will need to design for AI control and teach human leaders to "let go of the steering wheel".

The goal of Autonomous is to further expand the Boundless design principles that have guided the fastest growing companies in the world, and to ready business leaders, strategists and designers for success in the AI economy.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

The National Comedy Center and Smithsonian Institution hold unparalleled collections of artifacts that illustrate the vitality and importance of comedy in American life, from vaudeville, silent films, and TV sitcoms to stand-up, sketch, and cartoons. Now, for the first time, these collections are brought together in vibrant photographs and illuminating essays that tell the story of how comedy shaped American history.

Written by historians responsible for safeguarding these cultural treasures, the book takes readers behind the scenes to uncover the stories behind American heirlooms like Groucho Marx's tailcoat, George Carlin's joke files, Carol Burnett's "Went with the Wind" dress, Johnny Carson's monologues, and the very first Saturday Night Live script, alongside materials from cultural touchstones like The Simpsons, The Muppet Show, In Living Color, All In the Family, and I Love Lucy.

With a foreword by comedy legend Mel Brooks, this dynamic work offers pop culture aficionados, history lovers, and comedy nerds alike a new perspective on America's past and who we are as a nation through our comedy.